Toronto -- Damon Allen retired from football four years ago. He is now 49 years old.

"Oh yeah, I believe I can still play the game," he said one day earlier this week.

Really?

"Even watching this year, yeah," he said. "I can still step in and play the game."

Allen reluctantly announced the end of his 23-year career before the Toronto Argonauts opened training camp in 2008. He held a news conference. Speeches were made. Video tributes were aired. Cheerleaders were on hand. It was official.

And yet he always kept the door open a crack. Allen said he received a phone call earlier this season from defensive lineman Adriano Belli, who was ending his retirement to play down the stretch in Toronto. Belli suggested Allen return to active duty alongside him.

"I chose not to do it," the old quarterback said, smiling.

The Argos have finally found his replacement, after all, even if it only took them four full seasons. Quarterback Ricky Ray has led Toronto to its first Grey Cup appearance in eight years, since Allen led the Argos to a surprise title win in 2004.

"It's a quarterback-driven league," Allen said. "If you don't have a quarterback who can handle those types of pressures and adjust to the game as it flows -- he's the perfect guy they need to actually take them to that next level."

Ray threw for 399 yards and a touchdown in Toronto's 27-20 upset of the Montreal Alouettes Sunday. It was only the second time the Argos won a division final in Montreal since 1946. Allen did it in 2004.

And for a while in between, it looked like it would never happen again.

Allen was finally pushed from his starting job in 2007, when longtime backup Michael Bishop went on an 11-1 run during the regular season. Toronto undercut any momentum that off-season, though, by under-cutting Bishop and signing free agent Kerry Joseph, who had just won a Grey Cup with the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Bishop attended Joseph's introductory news conference, though he later admitted he was initially under the impression he was being flown to Toronto to announce his new contract extension. Bishop was in an airport terminal in Houston, waiting for his flight to Toronto, when the team finally called him to break the news it had signed Joseph.

It was a toxic situation. And it salted the ground behind centre for four seasons. Toronto parted ways with Bishop and then Joseph. A carousel of names spun through the roster -- from rodeo champion Cody Pickett to Canadian hopeful Danny Brannagan and NFL washout Cleo Lemon -- without ever finding an adequate replacement for Allen.

Allen was named the CFL's outstanding player in 2005, a year after helping Toronto to the Grey Cup. He was rarely spectacular during those two seasons, but he was efficient. With the team's dominant defence of the era, that was usually enough.

Not coincidentally, the quarterback-deficient Argos missed the playoffs in three of four seasons before this one, when they acquired Ray in a trade with Edmonton. After four seasons in the wilderness, they finally had another proven quarterback.

"The Argos are playing with a different quarterback, a quarterback who is playing more like Cool Hand Luke than anything else," Allen said.

Allen has remained close to the game. He said he is working as a motivational speaker, and that he has done work with the Argos and the CFL to help promote the game. He also runs an instructional service for young quarterbacks.

"There were two things that used to always tell me it was time to go," he said. "One, you lose your passion to play in the game. And two, skilfully, you just can't do it anymore. But I think, even the years they started to waive me and not play me, I still had the skill to play the game and still be a good quarterback. And my passion was still there.

"And it's still there."

National Post

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